Category Archives: Free Speech

Anti-semitism, racism and other prejudices are on the rise in most established democracies. Still, silencing white supremacists on the Internet is counterproductive. It would only lead to more senseless acts violence similar to those perpetrated by Anders Breivik and Rhodesia-inspired Dylann Roof.

While Facebook professes a commitment to stopping hate, harassment and discrimination, the social media behemoth’s reporting policies and human moderators often punish users of color who speak out against racism or justifiably criticize white people.

Silencing white supremacists on the Internet would only lead to white feelings of persecution, paranoia, white genocide conspiracy theories and acts violence similar to those recently perpetrated by Anders Breivik and Rhodesia-inspired Dylann Roof.

Ryerson University suppressed free speech rights when it cancelled a planned panel discussion featuring conservative academics and former Rebel Media journalist Faith Goldy, argues James Turk, the director of the Centre for Free Expression at Ryerson.

Internal Facebook documents reviewed by ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom, reveal that the social media behemoth’s censors often condone hate speech by white men but punish racialized minorities and activist groups for legitimate political expression.

Telecommunications giant AT&T’s spying on Americans for profit on behalf of law enforcement agencies is “more terrifying than the illegal NSA surveillance programs that Edward Snowden exposed,” says rights group Fight for the Future.

Yahoo secretly scanned all of its customer’s incoming emails in response to directives from the NSA and FBI. “This is a clear sign that people can trust neither their government nor their service providers to respect their privacy.”

Stephen Harper’s important 2007 speech, in which he stated that climate change was “perhaps the biggest threat to confront the future of humanity today” while visiting Germany, is missing from the official website of the Prime Minister of Canada.